


picking a title is the writing equivalent of drawing the background (and I won’t do either)

by hashtag_anthems



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, and one of them happens to be half fish, idk - Freeform, idk how to describe this au yet but if you want soft boys talking about their feelings, just a short sweet moment as part of an au that I have not written yet, mer!loki, mermaid au, soft, then you came to the right place!, uhhhhh anything else?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 22:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21435463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hashtag_anthems/pseuds/hashtag_anthems
Summary: “What does that mean?”“It means...”“Hmm?”“What do you want it to mean?”
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Comments: 4
Kudos: 79





	picking a title is the writing equivalent of drawing the background (and I won’t do either)

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first published frostiron fic so hopefully I did them justice
> 
> So like, this is supposed to be part of a larger au that I haven’t actually written or fleshed out yet so maybe I’ll come back to it if I have more ideas.

“Does that tickle or something?” Tony ran his fingers as lightly over the ridges on Loki’s sides as he could. They usually stayed sealed shut when Loki was out of the water, so he could breathe like a human, but they were still visible. Loki was barely holding back his laughter. Tony traced along one just to see the goosebumps spring up on the smooth, blue skin.

“You know, it’s an incredibly intimate act in my culture to feel up someone’s gills like that,” Loki said. Tony could tell that he was trying to sound serious, but he still sounded seconds away from cracking up.  
“Oh, like this?” Tony traced over the next one, and Loki tried to shove his hands away, finally giving in to a fit of giggles. Mermaid giggles were a magical sound. Loki’s voice was magical in its own right, but his laugh… It was like bells ringing at a wedding, and the wind blowing through a meadow, clear and sweet and warm… Tony could listen to it for the rest of his life and never get tired of hearing it.

“You… little… shit!” Loki was gasping for breath, and Tony let up a little bit, unsure of whether it was from laughter or the fact that mermaid lungs weren’t as strong as human lungs. He didn’t want to push too far. He just wanted to hear that beautiful, genuine, magical laugh again…

“I meant it, though. Our gills are one of our biggest vulnerabilities, so it’s something of an intimate act to let someone near them like this…”

Tony’s gaze was drawn to the gills on his other side, half of which were sealed shut by scar tissue running vertically through them. Loki had explained that the scar came from some fishermen when he was still a guppy. He’d fought and torn half of his gills open to get away, and they had never healed properly.

“You let me touch them,” Tony noted, running a finger down the scar. Loki didn’t even tense up. He didn’t have any feeling in the scar tissue. “What does that mean?”

“It means…” Loki trailed off, running his fingers through Tony’s hair.

“Hmm?” Tony traced another gill, watching it jump under his touch.

“What do you want it to mean?” Loki asked.

What did Tony want it to mean? He appreciated that Loki trusted him enough to let him near something so sensitive, so fragile, somewhere he’d been seriously hurt before. He loved the way that he had a way to make Loki laugh that beautiful, magical laugh. He… wanted to keep hearing that laugh. He wanted to be the reason Loki kept laughing like that, full of pure, genuine joy. He…

“I want it to mean that I can keep making you happy,” Tony finally settled on. “Whatever that means… I want to make you happy.”

Loki kept running his fingers through Tony’s hair without a word. He had a sleepy smile on his face. Despite the razor-sharp nails and needle-like teeth and superhuman strength, he looked so peaceful and soft and cute.

“I want to make you happy too,” he said, so softly that Tony almost didn’t catch it.

“You already do.” Tony had never thought about it before, but he was truly _happy_ when he was with Loki. Tony didn’t have to keep up appearances around him. Loki didn’t care who Tony’s parents were, or what the world expected Tony to do, or any of that stuff. Loki just cared about _Tony_, and Tony hadn’t realized how badly he’d needed that until now. Loki was someone that cared about Tony, not the Stark heir, not the genius, just Tony. And Tony cared about Loki too.

He wasn’t sure if this was love, but it was something he’d never felt before, not really. It was something that made him want to cuddle up with his mermaid and talk about the ocean and all the weird stuff down there and about all the crazy stuff humans do on land just because they can and about the hard stuff and the funny stuff and the stuff they wouldn’t dare tell anyone else because Loki wasn’t like anyone else, and Tony had never felt this way about another person in his whole life.

“You make me happier than I’ve ever felt before,” Tony admitted. “Sometimes it scares me how happy you make me, because for once I don’t have any answers and I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m so scared of screwing everything up, but then you smile and laugh and everything just… feels right.”

“Tony…”

“I don’t know what to call this, but I never want it to end. I want to make you as happy as you make me for the rest of our lives.”

“In my culture, we call that ‘love,’ you know.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What do _you_ call it?”

Loki thought for a moment, pulling his hand out of Tony’s hair. For a moment, Tony was worried he’d said something wrong, but Loki moved to cup Tony’s face in his hand instead. He angled Tony’s head so that their faces were practically touching.

“I don’t know if humans do this, but I call it wanting to do this for a long time.”

Tony had expected Loki’s inch-long, look-at-them-wrong-and-you-start-bleeding teeth to get in the way of kissing, but surprisingly they didn’t. Loki tasted salty but sweet and something else entirely that Tony didn’t have the words to describe except to say that it was a magical sensation. He was warm and soft, but with a power coursing through his veins that Tony would normally find unnerving, but with Loki it just meant _safe_ and _familiar_ and _Loki_ and it was everything Tony wanted more of.

Loki had to pull away first, gasping for air. Tony was starting to feel a little dizzy too, but he wasn’t sure if it was because of a lack of oxygen or something else entirely.

“That was… really nice,” he said, only for Loki to roll his eyes and go back to playing with Tony’s hair.

“All the build-up, and the dancing around each other for weeks, and the heartfelt confessions, and all you have to say is that it was _nice_?” He was smiling too much to be upset, and Tony got to hear that beautiful laugh again.

“No, it was _really_ nice.”

“Oh, my mistake, that’s a _completely _different sentiment.”

“Yeah, it is.” Tony relaxed into Loki’s touch, running his fingers over Loki’s gills and thinking about how maybe this was love, and how for the first time he could remember, he didn’t feel terrified of the concept. He just felt… really nice.

“You should get back soon. You’ll freeze if you spend much more time in here with me.” Loki didn’t stop running his claws over Tony’s scalp in _just_ the right way to be soothing.

“But then I have to leave you,” Tony complained.

“You know if I dry out, I get legs, right?”

“What!?” Tony sat up, and Loki looked ready to dive into the water at the sudden movement. “You never mentioned that!”

“It’s risky. One drop of water and I’m back to fins and a tail, but… if you wanted to go back… together… I could manage it sometimes.”

“Then what are you still sitting in that puddle for? Let’s go!”


End file.
